History

Early days (1960s)

One of the major influences in hard rock is undoubtedly Blues music , especially that brand of blues that met rock and roll in the 1960s: it is often called British blues, because this meeting happened in United Kingdom .

British rockers like The Rolling Stones , The Yardbirds , The Who and The Kinks modified rock and roll adding to the standard genre harder sounds, heavy guitar riffs , often bombastic drumming and harder vocals: they created the basis for hard rock. Even The Beatles , known for sweet sounds, love songs and quiet atmospheres, published a primordial hard rock album called The White Album .

At the same time, guitarist Jimi Hendrix produced a particular kind of blues known as Psychedelic rock , which combined elements of jazz , blues and rock and roll creating a unique genre. Also, he was one of the first guitarists to experiment new guitar effects like phasing , feedback and distortion . Another important group in the Blues-rock is Cream (especially the guitarist, Eric Clapton ).

Hard rock came into existence when British groups of late 1960s like Black Sabbath , Led Zeppelin mixed the music of early British rockers with a particular kind of Blues-rock , typified by an aggressive approach to the blues. Led Zeppelin's first eponymous album, released in 1969 , is a good example of heavy blues-rock which represents the true beginning of the hard rock genre.

Also Deep Purple showed up in the hard rock scene with the albums Shades of Deep Purple , The Book of Taliesyn , Deep Purple . Together with Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple are considered the true "masters" of hard rock.

The First Era (1970s)

In the 1970s , hard rock finally got a true identity.

Led Zeppelin's third album, Led Zeppelin III was more progressive rock -oriented than the second, but the heavy connotations of their music still remained. So, they received several critics from detractors of hard rock, who considered it a senseless music. Anyway, this didn't stop the expansion of hard rock: young boys liked it a lot, seeing it as a form of rebellion against the fair and quiet music of their fathers.

In 1970 another important group from UK, Black Sabbath , published what is considered the first heavy metal album, titled Paranoid . Black Sabbath's music was revolutionary even in hard rock: it was typified by the darkest lyrics ever written, hard riffs and a heavy atmosphere. Black Sabbath transformed the current hard rock in an heavier genre, creating a primordial kind of heavy metal.

In 1972 Deep Purple published their most famous album titled Machine Head which contains their most famous song, " Smoke On The Water ".

Machine Head continued Deep Purple's transformation of hard rock, and it's considered along with Paranoid one of the first proto-metal albums. In particular, the song " Highway Star " is considered the first Speed Metal song in the history (Speed Metal is the progenitor of the more extreme Thrash Metal ). Anyway, Deep Purple's music is very different from Black Sabbath's, so Deep Purple are still considered an hard rock group, not a metal group.

From 1973 , hard rock evolved to another stadium. New artists such Queen , KISS and Aerosmith introduced heavier elements in the genre, which from this point on lost the blues influences to become more heavy metal-oriented. Aerosmith and Queen published their respective eponymous debut albums, which shown perfectly the new evolution of hard rock. Even Led Zeppelin with the album Houses of the Holy took this direction.

Differently from the past, from this moment on every group created his own style: Aerosmith , Queen and KISS moved on a style that will evolve in 1980s to the so-called Glam Rock , one of the most popular rock subgenres; on the contrary, the proto-metal frontier, formed by Judas Priest , Rainbow and Van Halen , took a more "alternative" direction.

udas Priest introduced a new element in the genre, the dual rhythm, which is the fact that two guitarists instead of one play the rhythmic riffs : this element will become common in heavy metal. Judas Priest is one of the major influences of Thrash Metal and Power Metal .

Rainbow, formed by the former guitarist of Deep Purple, Ritchie Blackmore , created the basis for power metal together with Judas Priest, especially thanks to Ritchie Blackmore's great technique. Meanwhile, Black Sabbath took off the darkness of the beginning with albums such as Technical Ecstasy , following the heavy metal direction of Judas Priest and Rainbow.

Another important group in the hard rock scene showed up in 1978, it's Van Halen . Van Halen's music, differently from KISS, Aerosmith and Queen, was based mostly on the guitar skills of Eddie Van Halen , the lead guitarist. In the album Van Halen there's a massively influential song, " Eruption ", which demonstrates all the technique Eddie owns.

In 1979, the differences between the classical hard rock movement and the rising heavy metal movement got truly highlighted. The australian band AC/DC , after 3 australian only albums, published their first international album titled Highway to Hell : despite the current heavy metal direction, AC/DC's music is based mostly on the rhythm & blues and the early 1970s hard rock. On the other side, the British band Motörhead , with the album Overkill put on the basis for the rise of Thrash Metal .

The year closed with Ozzy Osbourne 's firing from Black Sabbath due to his alcohol and drugs problems. Ronnie James Dio , vocalist of Rainbow , came to replace him.

 

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